SCAMchampion of the month May 2017

Crossroads Care was invited to send delegates to the Friends Against Scams and SCAMchampion training course at County Hall Maidstone in Kent last November.

It was really interesting and it was great meeting the Kent County Council Community Wardens and sharing experiences and ideas.

At the time I was volunteering for Ageless Thanet and Age UK so through them I began delivering the Friends Against Scams presentation to local community groups. I also started being more proactive when going to assess clients in the community, giving advice, leaflets and door stickers.

So far I have trained 25 residents from Thanet Speak Up (a mental health group) and 35 for Ageless Thanet/Age UK. I have been asked to deliver the training to the Margate Task Force and all 70 plus staff at Crossroads Care. I am sending anti-scam information via Volcare to enable their volunteers to raise awareness with their 86 clients.
With the help of Age UK I have now secured a grant of £500 from the Thanet community safety partnership to purchase a projector and 400 No Doorstep Caller stickers.

I took part in the National Scams Awareness day on 16th March at a branch of Santander in Ramsgate Kent where I gave advice and leaflets to hundreds of people and with bank staff, we stopped a customer being conned out of £800!

It’s fair to say that all the groups I am involved in deal with adults in potentially vulnerable situations and so there is a high risk of them being targeted, if they haven’t already been a victim. I now intend to meet as many groups as time will allow across Kent, to heighten people’s aware-ness and reduce the incidences of people being scammed.

Anyone
can be a victim and we should all be vigilant about any unsolicited contact
especially if it involves parting with even the smallest amount of money.